


As the World Falls (Tumbling Down)

by feverbeats



Category: Labyrinth (1986)
Genre: F/M, Ficlet, Het
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-11
Updated: 2010-01-11
Packaged: 2017-10-06 04:42:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/49770
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/feverbeats/pseuds/feverbeats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He did not pick the metaphor idly when he began to spin the globes between his fingers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	As the World Falls (Tumbling Down)

**Author's Note:**

> Spot the crossover.

The trouble is, Jareth has been taken by surprise. Sarah is not the first, of course. She is, however, one of the last, and that is much more potent a magic.

He would crawl, beg, borrow, steal, kill for her. She doesn't want it, though, any of it. She doesn't want his love and she doesn't want his kingdom. She doesn't want _him_. He has brought himself to his knees for her and she just doesn't want it.

She would taste like apple candy, he has decided. The problem is that she wouldn't.

Her heart is a Labyrinth. He knows this, but he's wrong. She's just a teenage girl, human and angry and alive, eyes filled to the brim with movies and phone calls and costumes. She wouldn't believe she was normal, but she is. It's normal to hurt when you're her age, but Jareth doesn't know that. Jareth has never been normal.

To him, Sarah is like crystal. He did not pick the metaphor idly when he began to spin the globes between his fingers. She is beautiful and fragile and loud when struck. Only she could break his heart (_this time_), his heart, which is fragile as—

It has been broken before. _One of us always tells the truth and one of us always lies_.

Sarah does not know how to lie, and so she is too raw and open and vulnerable. (And so is he. _You starve and near exhaust me_.)

There was one child who broke Jareth's heart even though he accepted his offer. Jareth made him into a demon, powerful and beautiful and young forever, but in the end, he turned away for pathetically human reasons. And then, of course, Jareth forgot him, and he lost all of his youth and beauty and power. _Six feet down at age twenty-five_.

Jareth still hasn't learned.

What would he do if she said yes? (He wouldn't know what to do. Set her in ivory—

and gold.)

But maybe she doesn't want that. The problem is, _the problem is_ that he wants her to never have to grow up. He wants her to remain pained and young and raw forever, so she's doing a good job of it so far. She doesn't even know how to wear lipstick. That's all right, because growing up is not about lipstick. Jareth wouldn't know that, either. He has never grown up.

He likes the snakes because they are something to do with human religious mythology. Sarah, however, is not as bright as Eve, and she is afraid of snakes. And crystals.

The masque seemed like a good idea, because she love playing dress-up, but something goes wrong. He never sorts out what.

When it is over, he will forget, almost. She may not even be the last. He may fall for another young, angry, impossible child who he will fail to understand.


End file.
